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Shapeshifter Skills Discussion
So, some of you may or may not know or care, but I've taken to finally figuring out how to write my own offense for a class, and I decided on Shapeshifter. Having messed around with it for the last couple of weeks, I have various questions, suggestions, and comments. I have been told by @Lim that I should probably ask @Valingar these things directly, but I'd like to throw it all out there anyways.
Questions:
1.) Why is Shapeshifter damage so low compared to Monks with the same amount of artifact investment? (I know Shapeshifter aren't damage killers, but I'm curious.)
2.) Why does Interchange use combat messages to basically completely give away what your hidden howls you changed to will be? IE:
Malok uses Vocalization Interchange (mind-numbing, deep, distasteful).
3.) Why is there even the condition of being paralyzed on a target to get a jawlock on them when getting paralysis to stick on anyone as a Shapeshifter is basically impossible, at least in 1v1? Is it meant for teams? I know that you can do prone or paralyzed, but my point ultimately is why give them an additional condition that is so useless?
4.) Why does Spleenrip decrease resistance to poisons when the class has no way to take advantage of this?
5.) Why does AB THROATRIP insinuate that Fitness increases your health when it increases your endurance? What exactly does Throatrip do? Does it decrease their max endurance?
Suggestions:
1.) In Report 2046 it mentions maybe allowing Spinalrip to work on a prone target instead of paralyzed. I think this would be great. It would maybe actually allow you to get jawlocks on people that aren't prone, and would add another thing for people to need to jecis/resto.
2.) Take the part out of combat messages that tells you or anyone else what howls you're interchanging to. It seems completely unnecessary.
3.) Change how you initially set up howls to be less tedious. It should not take me 60s to put up 3 howls. Or at least if it does, allow me to howl them all at once to be knocked off howl balance for 60 seconds all at once, instead of doing 3 separate 20s commands.
4.) Make Lacerate a viable skill, even without Spleenrip. As its not a claw attack, I think it'd be fine if it did a bonus to its damage based on the amount of bleeding a person has, with the negative of if you spam it, it never allows the additional bleed from your guts falling out later to happen until you stop using it.(Similar to how soulmaster balance works).
5.) Give Shapeshifters a way to dissuade people from spamming shield. Broken arms are great and all, but if someone gets to where they can spam shield, you literally only have hammer tattoo. Every other limb based class has a way around this. My idea is to make an attack that takes balance and not arm balance, like Gut or Lacerate, that crushes a shield defense and gives them a unique affliction that disallows them from touching shield tattoo while its on them and is only curable by resto/jecis.
Thanks for reading! I look forward to seeing the responses in the thread.
Questions:
1.) Why is Shapeshifter damage so low compared to Monks with the same amount of artifact investment? (I know Shapeshifter aren't damage killers, but I'm curious.)
2.) Why does Interchange use combat messages to basically completely give away what your hidden howls you changed to will be? IE:
Malok uses Vocalization Interchange (mind-numbing, deep, distasteful).
3.) Why is there even the condition of being paralyzed on a target to get a jawlock on them when getting paralysis to stick on anyone as a Shapeshifter is basically impossible, at least in 1v1? Is it meant for teams? I know that you can do prone or paralyzed, but my point ultimately is why give them an additional condition that is so useless?
4.) Why does Spleenrip decrease resistance to poisons when the class has no way to take advantage of this?
5.) Why does AB THROATRIP insinuate that Fitness increases your health when it increases your endurance? What exactly does Throatrip do? Does it decrease their max endurance?
Suggestions:
1.) In Report 2046 it mentions maybe allowing Spinalrip to work on a prone target instead of paralyzed. I think this would be great. It would maybe actually allow you to get jawlocks on people that aren't prone, and would add another thing for people to need to jecis/resto.
2.) Take the part out of combat messages that tells you or anyone else what howls you're interchanging to. It seems completely unnecessary.
3.) Change how you initially set up howls to be less tedious. It should not take me 60s to put up 3 howls. Or at least if it does, allow me to howl them all at once to be knocked off howl balance for 60 seconds all at once, instead of doing 3 separate 20s commands.
4.) Make Lacerate a viable skill, even without Spleenrip. As its not a claw attack, I think it'd be fine if it did a bonus to its damage based on the amount of bleeding a person has, with the negative of if you spam it, it never allows the additional bleed from your guts falling out later to happen until you stop using it.(Similar to how soulmaster balance works).
5.) Give Shapeshifters a way to dissuade people from spamming shield. Broken arms are great and all, but if someone gets to where they can spam shield, you literally only have hammer tattoo. Every other limb based class has a way around this. My idea is to make an attack that takes balance and not arm balance, like Gut or Lacerate, that crushes a shield defense and gives them a unique affliction that disallows them from touching shield tattoo while its on them and is only curable by resto/jecis.
Thanks for reading! I look forward to seeing the responses in the thread.
"Hell hath no hold on a warrior’s mind, see how the snow has made each of us blind. Vibrant colors spray from new dead, staining the earth such a beautiful red."
2
Comments
As for shield I do agree something needs done as the class faces the same issue Bloodborn has right now. Perhaps they can clone it to a certain extend and fix it for both classes so it cause bleed in the range of 200-300.
Abhorash says, "Ve'kahi has proved that even bastards can earn their place."
Edit: Forgot that they had other kinds of attacks that are physical, so changed my wording.
In PvE, Ss damage isn't bad at all, especially with the recent buff to it. In PvP:
- All your attacks come with a bleed. The bleed is significant.
- Jugular claw, your highest damage attack realistically, is also your fastest attack, and hits the head. Unlike monks, Ss usefully punish all six body parts and have to take advantage of this to get anywhere in a battle.
- You can vocalize direct damage on top of your attacks. AB VOCALIZING ENFEEBLING
- Your sensitivity vocalizing bypasses deafness when used with BONESHAKING.
- Idiocy/Plodding soak toadstools, in theory. This was nerfed though, so may be part of why lycan damage was originally a little lower.
I'm not convinced Ss damage needs too much toying. Balance times might need work here and there, but anything else is kinda meh.
2. This needs to be liaisoned. I plan to do that with the next round. At least while SNARLing is up, the shrieks need to be hidden when you initially set them or interchange.
3. Because it's better than having just prone. Since Ss have QUARTER, we were lucky enough to get some team-specific utility. Paralysis would be part of that. I wouldn't personally use SPINERIP/SPINECRACK in 1v1.
4&5. Yeh, liaison for something. I never understood the new rips. Be kinda cool if after spleenrip, we get poison damage added to attacks. Be cool if the head rip causes toadstool not to heal every other eat.
My concern at the moment is the abyss physical audit we get. Maxing out, I get 41% blunt/cut (unarmored sciomancer can push close to 60%, and BB get scythe stance + fort). Iit isn't realistic to expect us to use health/mana shrieks in pvp during aggressive periods, especially with the 30sec ability timer on interchange and need to use EQ to converge on yourself. If the flavor isn't to make big furry beasts armored, shouldn't we have faster regeneration or higher health pools? Maybe an ability like Spark or Leech? Maybe extra diverts, as opposed to straight higher dodge?
I remember, involve me and I
learn.
-Benjamin Franklin
Other concern of mine is skullcrush; I don't get it.
To a few of your questions tho:
1) Shapeshifter damage is not as high as monk for simple fact, You can break someone's limb in 1 hit or two limbs in a combo. Monks you can't so the people have no way to combat it considering 2 broken arms = no shielding
2) I guess if you're using snarling, you might want to bug/liaison it next round to if using snarling have it NOT show what you change them to
Your Suggestions:
1) You can jawlock paralysis people don't need to be prone
2) I guess that's more to do with snarling.. Like if person is snarling have it just
Malok uses Vocalization Interchange (hidden). - or some sort.
3) Interchange should be changed to switch howls and to also let you put up them said howls from the getgo. That way it doesn't interfere with Baying (or depending which shifter you are)
4/5) sound more like a liaison report to get changed
@Reux - I know its OR, not AND.
My point is, why even allow us to jawlock off paralysis when its 99% impossible to stick paralysis as a Shapeshifter? Why not -just- make it prone since in most circumstances it already is?
Also, keep the responses coming.
I 100% agree on the cooldown change suggested for howls. That is irritating.
I'm not sure about the damage in PVP, as what I notice mostly when fighting opposing lycans are the limb breaks stopping me from stealing Valingar's kills. I think they're in a good spot for bashing, though.
Man, I kind of want to play the class a lot more lately.
As for the damage in pvp, I guess it's fine. I did damage kill Valingar last night 1v1, but I suppose it just requires going for different attacks. I see people as Monks hit me for like 40-45% of my max health and then when I do like 34% on someone as a Shapeshifter for the same 1600cr investment, it just seems odd to me. This is -likely- a product of the Shapeshifter damage being balanced, and the Monk not though.
I'm not -concerned- with it having another option, I was just wondering what the design decision was behind it having the option of jawlocking people that have an affliction that is impossible to stick in 1v1. It's clear that is just there to aid team combat, which is cool.
The class is a lot of fun, but could use a bunch of small tweaks to bring it in line with other classes that have been changed in recent times and are in a good place themselves. That's my opinion. Doesn't need a redesign, but needs tweaked heavily.
Abhorash says, "Ve'kahi has proved that even bastards can earn their place."
Target has to have at least mangled arms/torso and be PRONE(however they are proned) for the armpit lock. Paralysis for the other thing is, I believe, for spinal rip? Which can potentially still be achieved by howling anorexia/paresis/stupidity, then spinal ripping as soon as you see the paralysis pop. Kinda depends, it really is hard to land these days with howl not giving paralysis full-blown. Sup liaisons(if it hasn't been addressed already).
RE: Shapeshifter damage. Monks don't have a shitload of the tools Shapeshifters do. Limb breaks every combo, on-demand mangles/destroys off of those. Back when my pack were all moderately active combatants, our pack had a 9-10s quarter. Think about that for a second.
You pick one clown, and they don't get to play Aetolia today.
I remember, involve me and I
learn.
-Benjamin Franklin
Also, @Nalor, I tested the barreling thing last night with Riluo. It does 100% proc but only on using Destroy on a leg. It doesn't proc on an arm. It also wont show up if you already had them prone from doing a double leg break. So try hitting a break/mangle/destroy on one leg and see what happens.
More work to be done. And yes, I know I can groinrip and push for a Devour, but I don't always have Devour because I don't have many lessons into Ferality and require a blessing to have the ability.
I'm also very sad that it seems in 1v1 the only viable thing to use in howls is stupidity/anorexia/paresis. Everyone says this over and over on the forums, and it seems to be true. I just wish there was some variety in what howls are viable. Ah well.
Also, stupidity/anorexia/blurry is probably pretty viable vs physical classes like Syssin and Knight-types, in order to push the salve balance/curing knocks further. Really just kinda depends on who it is and how well they cure either one. And luck/timing.
Thanks for confirming what I said, @Malok. Thanks, @Nalor, I was right
Just keep working at it Malok. The class is really fun.
I remember, involve me and I
learn.
-Benjamin Franklin
/just headbutts people with horns racial relic
/wins
I remember, involve me and I
learn.
-Benjamin Franklin
The Buffet ability that Werebears have...does it do blunt damage or cutting damage? I'd imagine blunt, but I have no idea, because it doesn't say.
And, also, in everyone's opinion, which Wereform has the best Rupture-esque ability? Is it worth switching from Werewolf to a different one? Does it matter, etc?
I remember, involve me and I
learn.
-Benjamin Franklin
Unless flood is made not to require bal on use. Aye? Aye?
If the stun from Buffet is actually reasonably long, it may actually be better than the bleeding from Rupture.
I remember, involve me and I
learn.
-Benjamin Franklin